Imperfective vs. perfective
Sep. 17th, 2008 10:47 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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learn_russianHi all,
I'm having a bit of trouble with imperfective vs. perfective. If anyone could translate these sentences (preferably with explanation), I would be very appreciative! I'm going to use "to buy" as the example, since I was having trouble with it in class.
1. I would like to buy this item (right now).
2. I'd love to buy that (eventually).
3. Every week, I buy a gallon of milk.
4. When I see something I like, I buy it.
5. I need to buy some potatoes at the market.
6. Can you go buy some potatoes at the market for me?
And any other examples you can think of...
Большое спасибо!
I'm having a bit of trouble with imperfective vs. perfective. If anyone could translate these sentences (preferably with explanation), I would be very appreciative! I'm going to use "to buy" as the example, since I was having trouble with it in class.
1. I would like to buy this item (right now).
2. I'd love to buy that (eventually).
3. Every week, I buy a gallon of milk.
4. When I see something I like, I buy it.
5. I need to buy some potatoes at the market.
6. Can you go buy some potatoes at the market for me?
And any other examples you can think of...
Большое спасибо!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 05:54 am (UTC)3. Каждую неделю я покупаю галлон молока
4. Когда я вижу что-то, что мне нравится, я покупаю это
5. Мне нужно купить картошки в магазине
6. Можешь купить для меня картошки в магазине?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 06:01 am (UTC)and, market is not магазин, it's рынок
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 06:12 am (UTC)http://blogs.yandex.ru/search.xml?text=imperfective&ft=blog&server=livejournal.com&journal=learn_russian
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 08:32 am (UTC)Я бы хотел купить/приобрести эту вещь (прямо сейчас/сейчас же)
2. I'd love to buy that (eventually).
Я бы хотел это купить (когда-нибудь).
Я бы хотел купить это (когда-нибудь).
Мне бы хотелось купить это (когда-нибудь).
Хотел бы я купить это!
Вот бы купить такой/такую/такое/это (когда-нибудь).
lots of other variants, I guess :)
3. Every week, I buy a gallon of milk.
Leaving aside 'gallon' as an absolutely non-Russian measure for liquids,
it will be: Каждую неделю я покупаю галлон молока.
In Russia you would want to say: Каждую неделю я покупаю четыре литра молока.
4. When I see something I like, I buy it.
Когда я вижу что-то, что мне нравится, я это покупаю.
5. I need to buy some potatoes at the market.
Мне нужно купить немного картошки на рынке. (Some amount in kilograms)
Or
Мне нужно купить несколько картофелин на рынке. (A number of individual potatoes)
6. Can you go buy some potatoes at the market for me?
Не мог бы ты сходить на рынок купить мне немного картошки?
Не мог бы ты сходить на рынок купить мне несколько картофелин?
Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-19 11:15 pm (UTC)This has not prevented me from listening and reading and reviewing vocabulary and moving on to more more interesting content,literature including audio books, daily downloads of audio and text from Echo Moskvi, and deriving intense enjoyment from the language.
Now after 2 years I have quite a wide vocabulary, and enjoy speaking. I make mistakes, but do not worry about it. I work on phrases that gradually increase my accuracy, but I learn them from content that interests me, like Echo or literature.
I think that if I had worried about understanding the rules of Russian grammar, or even speaking correctly, I would have long since given up. Now I have a solid base and a feel for the language that I can build on as I try to get a little more accurate in my use of the language. Has anyone had a similar experience?
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 05:46 pm (UTC)Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 06:06 pm (UTC)Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 06:59 pm (UTC)Still, Russian is a far more difficult language than English, and too many nuances depend on the exact knowledge of what you're doing.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 07:15 pm (UTC)Echo Moskvi, Russian literature and audio books, historical biographies by Radzinski are my teachers. Always audio and text, and lots of listening.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 07:32 pm (UTC)I understand your point -- to an extent. Even now, after some twenty-five years of English self-study, I still feel the lack of formal knowledge (verb forms is something that kils me, of all things.) Russian is even more touchy in this sense. Yes, I was telling myself the same stories: that I was doing it only for fun, and needed no formal study as I knew it couldn't be fun. Then, I was climbing the ladder, year by year, with the same self-taught broken English in my pocket, until a few years ago I started doing guest lectures and, what was worse, professional conferences at American universities. I still had a kind of self-excuse when it was University of Idaho; last year, at a top-notch professional conference at the Columbia University, the self-excuses were over. Well, I only hope I made a nice funny savage.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 07:50 pm (UTC)I listen a lot. I read the texts of what I am listening to. I save words and phrases from these texts, which I review. (I have a special computer system for doing all of this). I gradually become more observant of structure and correct usage, and I imitate it better and better. I think I get some of my cases right in Russian, some of the time, and I think I will get better over time.
But the perfective-imperfective aspect is just something that has not clicked, no matter how often I see it explained. My brain is not yet wired to accept that concept. It will take time and it may never happened, just like many fluent Russian speakers of English just cannot create the neural patterns to enable them to use articles correctly. I do not worry about it.
There have been aspects of Japanese or Chinese ( amongst the languages that I speak) that just took years before they fell into place.
By the way, to judge by your English, you have mastered the article, which suggests that your English is better than you imply. What do you want, perfection?
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 08:07 pm (UTC)Come on. What you see is written English. I take my time when I write, I return when I see a mistake and correct it, and I even rewrite parts of sentences if I feel that they are not English enough (and yes, I read English a lot, both as part of my job and just for fun; I even read some Scripture in English and find some special interest in comparing Russian, Church Slavonic and English versions of the Scripture.) But you haven't heard me speaking. Neither did I, BTW, so I only could judge your Russian by your own description of your level.
Getting back to our beloved perfective/imperfective verbs, it looks quite funny that you find it difficult. I find Germanic concept of perfective vs. imperfective (both in German and in English) far more elaborate than modern Russian (other Slavic languages, expecially Church Slavonic, as well as ancient Russian, had a more complicated system of reflecting perfective/imperfective aspect.) In Russian, it's quite plain -- most verbs come in pairs; if you need to reflect the continuity or the repetitiveness, you choose imperfective; if otherwise, go with perfective. Maybe if you explain the nature of your troubles with those pairs, or just post your own attempts to use them (however incorrect they may be,) it'd be easier for us (or me, for instance) to find out what exactly is not clicking with you (and, therefore, to try to help you more effectively.)
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 08:31 pm (UTC)But to put it briefly I am not motivated to pursue the problem because I can understand what I hear and read, whichever of the pairs are used i.e.
читать/прочитать
посылать/послать
покупать/купить
etc.
I know that in theory one is used for repetitive actions and the other for one off actions. IN reality when I am speaking I just use whatever come to mind. I feel that one day the correct one will just come out naturally more and more often. If I have to think about which one to use I will end up tongue tied. That is just my learning style. I believe that we are better able to get used to patterns rather than try to use logic or reasoning when speaking.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 08:41 pm (UTC)В последние два года каждое утро я читаю газету "Неправда".
Те два года, что я провёл в больнице, я каждое утро читал газету "Медицинская жуть".
Я читал медицинскую энциклопедию два года и наконец прочитал её.
Я прочёл два учебника: по физике и по химии, но не могу вспомнить ничего из того, что я читал.
Каждые два дня я прочитывал по одной главе учебника химии, но сегодня мне нужно прочесть две главы.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 08:46 pm (UTC)But you cannot learn what you do not want to learn. I am more motivated to read and listen to more Russian and expand my passive vocabulary. I am not motivated to work on bits and pieces that I believe will come to me naturally anyway.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 08:49 pm (UTC)Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 08:55 pm (UTC)Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 09:00 pm (UTC)Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-20 09:02 pm (UTC)Maybe I should have posted my first question as a new thread. I am still getting used to how things work here.
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-21 04:35 am (UTC)First of all, I'm 51-yrs-old. I started learning Russian when I was in the 6th grade. It was all very formal training conducted by the school. I continued taking Russian courses until I graduated from high school. When I graduated, I had a very good understanding of Russian grammar, but I would not say I was anywhere near fluent since I did not have enough practical experience speaking the language.
I attended the U.S. Naval Academy and validated 6 semesters of Russian. I majored in Aerospace Engineering, but my senior year I took two elective courses from the Soviet Studies Department: Elements of Propaganda and 17th Century Russian Literature.
That ended my formal Russian training.
However, in the past year, I have decided to dust off the brain cells and try to get it back into it. Only, *this* time, I want to aim for fluency. The advent of the internet makes this much easier.
My problem is that I know so much grammar I find myself hyper-aware of the grammatical nuances and, therefore, it slows me down. I'm too concerned about making a mistake. I'm trying to be more spontaneous this time around.
I know the grammar pretty well - I just don't have a very large vocabulary. I can READ/WRITE Russian much better than I can speak or understand it - but that's mostly because I can control the pace.
David Emerling
Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-21 04:43 am (UTC)Re: Imperfective and perfective verbs, instrumental case, and other niceties
Date: 2008-09-21 05:02 am (UTC)